Stupid: Linguists Name “Occupy” as Word of the Year

When it’s comes to being the word of the year, ‘occupy’ is camped out at the top this year, keeping down ‘the 99 percent’ and stifling ‘job creators.’

The word, which became synonymous with anti-Wall Street protestors who took over parks in New York and across the nation this year, was selected as the top term by a large majority of delegates at the American Dialect Society’s annual meeting.

Boy, that sounds like an exciting place to be, huh?

But even before ‘occupy’ became a household word in the US, it identified millions of protestors across the Arab world who staged protests that toppled regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and created massive civil unrest in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.

‘It’s a very old word, but over the course of just a few months it took on another life and moved in new and unexpected directions, thanks to a national and global movement,’ said Ben Zimmer, the chair of the new words committee for the American Dialect Society.

Global movement? Really? Imagine my shock to discover Zimmer comes from the University of Chicago and has worked for the New York Times.